Fan Diary by Barry Barnes 

Well I had quite an eventful lead up to the launch... the Tuesday before I was in my bosses office, when as I left, I caught my leg in his power/pc leads and then proceeded to fall, full body weight onto my elbow... Crash! The result a broken, smashed elbow now with a kind of meccano structure in my arm (see pix).

Luckily op was carried out promptly, so I managed to recover for the gig.  I did not think I would be going early on, but with the help of my two good friends Simon and Steve (minders for the night) alongside managed to get to the Roadhouse.

We arrived near to the end of the album play,  (completely forgot about the raffle at this stage) just was glad I had made it up to see the live performance... we had distributed the tickets with Steve giving me my flat No 16.

FM performance great as always, they were on fine form, even the bar guys were enjoying the set.

After the set around 10:30ish we had to set off (Sunday trains) when we heard that the raffle was about to take place... we were half way up the stairs, and Steve said let's wait...

The ticket for the guitar was read out, none of ours, but no taker, so a second ticket was drawn 16!  Mine.  I was in a state of shock and to be on stage with one of my favourite bands was surreal to me.  I have been following the band from the early days before record deals, numerous Marquee visits.  I know my statement of FM being one of the best bands in the world may have seemed extreme but in my world they are one of the best, with perhaps one of our most underrated singers in Steve O.

All in all a great night and eventful week for me... one I will not forget...

Barry Barnes